The Relatively Non-Radicalized Kids of CPAC

NATIONAL HARBOR, MARYLAND—A few feet from the cannibalistic press throng surrounding Richard Spencer, 2017's most prominent white supremacist, a young kid of slight build was taking in the scene. "I don't know if he was invited," said Rickie Ellison, who bears more than a passing resemblance to his pro golfing namesake Rickie Fowler, "But I think this event's pretty—everybody's welcome." Spencer calls himself the founder of the so-called "alt-right" and led a group in a Nazi salute to Donald Trump shortly after his victory. Here he was on the opening day of the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2017, holding court in the hallway. Ellison, a high-school kid from Naples, wasn't entirely familiar with Spencer's record, but he wasn't about to demand he be thrown out—soon enough, he was—the day before the president was slated to make this conservative pilgrimage.

In a movement dominated by Baby Boomers slowly drowning in their own resentment and nostalgia, CPAC is a blast of youthful energy. The crowd of thousands was mostly young people, many traveling from colleges across the country to attend. Some pay their own way, but most have help from the intricate web of conservative and Republican organizations hell-bent on recruiting and organizing the right's next generation. The GOP may not have the numbers among young people, but the ones they do have are relentlessly cultivated. John Wood, Brad Decker, and Joseph Morris of Liberty University said they got here through their hard work the past fall.

Richard Spencer

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"We were the number two call center in the state of Virginia" on behalf of Donald Trump, Wood told me. Their College Republican group canvassed and called and raised money, so the national organization helped get them subsidized tickets here. It was a reward for their top 25 most productive members, all of whom made the trip to the Gaylord National Resort & Hotel for these three days. There's been turnover in their club, they said, with some members leaving when Trump secured the nomination. But they recruited new members, many of whom had never engaged with politics before. It's a microcosm of the Republican Party at large.

"Last year, CPAC was in the midst of the primaries," Norris said. "And so there were a lot of panels about, what's the future of the Republican Party?How do we move forward? Now, I notice the panels are more about issues, and what we're going to do now that we have the power."

That's certainly true: Most speeches here were a mix of triumphalism and breathless expectation. But that's not the only change from last year. After all, there was a sizable faction then that protested the inclusion of Trump, then the frontrunner for the nomination. He ended up skipping the event. Last year, some of the darker forces on the right were also shut out. Steve Bannon was one of them, but this year he was featured in a keynote interview alongside Reince Priebus with the chair of CPAC's organizing committee, Matt Schlapp. Indeed, the Breitbart name and its associated characters were all over the place. At one point, Frank Gaffney, a conspiracy theorist listed as an anti-Muslim extremist by the SPLC, hosted a discussion on threats to the national power grid.

"Now, I notice the panels are more about issues, and what we're going to do now that we have the power."

17-year-old Rickie Ellison defended Spencer's presence on free-speech grounds. Like many in attendance, Ellison saw no boundary to free speech. He said he understood CPAC's decision to rescind a speaking invitation to Milo Yiannopoulos after video emerged of him appearing to defend pedophilia, but that he was still a fan. "He doesn't like to use a filter," Ellison said, not unlike the president. In both cases, he explained, it's a non-issue: "If you're going to be a jerk to everybody else, but your policies are good, then I don't really care. That's part of the whole free speech thing. You say what you want, but if you do what I agree with and that essentially makes America prosper, I'm good. I'll be a happy constituent."

Frustration with limits and rules on campus seemed to attract many of the young people here. "As a conservative, you feel completely outnumbered on campus, between the politically apathetic and and the politically incompetent," said Aron Winburn, a proud libertarian from Coastal Carolina University. He saw real value in CPAC's "activism bootcamps" on field organizing, harnessing social media, and of course, combatting campus PC culture. "These bootcamps are a good way to teach people in college how to tackle being in an environment that really denounces their ideology."

Four students from Liberty University.

Jack Holmes

But escaping the PC police is just one benefit of CPAC. Some, like the guys from Liberty, had designs on political careers and spent the week handing out very official-looking business cards. Wood and Decker said they were open to running for office after they got experience in the business world, while Norris said he wanted to be a staffer. "It's a great place to make connections," he said. "I was down there talking to the Heritage Foundation about internships, and if I can land that it'll be a big help."

They're also there to get a little starstruck. "I like Dan Bongino, he's a radio host," said Trevor Ahouse, the treasurer of his College Republican club. "He was here today and I got to see him." He said he'd just come from the Draft David Clarke for Senate session, which featured the Milwaukee cop-turned-conservative TV icon and reality star Dog the Bounty Hunter. Outside there, I asked a young couple waiting in line if they were big fans of the sheriff.

In the hallway, a pair of young women in elephant-printed skirts stood along the wall. (The crowd was probably 35 percent women.) They were here with Future Female Leaders, "the leading conservative movement for young women across America." The skirts—and dresses, and men's apparel—were on sale downstairs, they told me. Molly Haynes from James Madison University told me, "This is basically conservative Hollywood. Every important conservative you could ever meet is probably here." They weren't just here for Sean Hannity or Carly Fiorina, though, as Haynes' companion, Anna Carraway of NC State, made clear when I asked her about a future career.

"I want to be on the Supreme Court," she stated flatly. "That's my goal."

Molly Haynes and Anna Carraway

Jack Holmes

There were certainly some MAGA hats floating above the crowds, and there were some Richard Spencer-style undercuts in attendance as well. But for the most part, these were the same kind of young Republican types that have probably always walked the halls of the Gaylord National in February: ambitious, staunchly conservative, mostly well-adjusted young people who are at least partly here to have a good time. (One blessing of the Trump movement, it should be said, was a dramatic drop in the bowties per capita.) They have, like their older compatriots, readily acquiesced to the new order of Trumpism out of a mix of ideological horse trading, party loyalty, and the will to power. But if you're nostalgic for a Republican party that is merely staunchly conservative and cynically calculating, but not overtly careening towards authoritarianism, CPAC's youngest attendees offered more to cling to than did their elders.

"I don't think there's a way that you could ever say, 'Oh, this group of people hates everything America stands for,'" said John Wood. "That's just not true. People on both sides might have a different view of what America should be, but there's plenty of crossover. The country's founded on compromise."

I asked many young attendees whether Islam has a place in America, and nearly all said it did—a vault over the precipitously low bar for tolerance now in place for conservatives. Even Ellison, who remarked at length on the "oppression" that takes place in Muslim-majority countries, granted that, "what you'd call liberal Muslims are good news for America."

"If you're going to come to America, you'll have to accept that we treat women as equal citizens," said Wood. "Minority rights, LGBT rights. I'm a Christian, but I hold no animosity towards people who are gay or lesbian or transgender."

Still, though, the young couldn't escape the shadow world of the Gaylord. CPAC's programming drags on for 10 hours a day, and one gets the impression many attendees spend the whole time in the byzantine complex of hallways and breakout rooms without a breath of fresh air—or a taste of the 75 degrees-and-sunny going on outside. The place is 537,000 square feet, and features its very own mini-village of houses and trees inside a multi-story atrium.

Nathan Roux and Trevor Ahouse

Jack Holmes

All of this helps CPAC maintain its own reality. This was a place where there were no Russian allegations, no mass protests against the president (other than the ones funded by George Soros), and where the rise of President Donald Trump has nothing to do with the fact that there were a lot more white nationalists and garden-variety extremists trodding the halls this year. Most of the kids hadn't supported Trump from the jump; they'd backed Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio. But they backed him now, just like Cruz, even if the president insulted his wife and hinted his father was involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

"I can't defend that," said Brad Decker of Liberty, "But Ted Cruz said 'come together,' because that's what the party needs." Of course, Ted Cruz also wants to keep the dream of Cruz 2024 alive, but he's not the only one in this boat. Everyone here, even those who once trashed Trump, embraced him on the premise that he would be a net-positive for the conservative movement and the baggage—merely inconvenient for them—would be worth it. The name "Neil Gorsuch" became a kind of rallying cry, as conservative traditionalists assured themselves it had all been worth it with a cacophony of cheers and applause.

So while the Liberty College Republican chapter might have lost a few members over the summer, it's clear that the new watchword of the right is "unity." The question is whether, in the mad scramble to come together, someone's about to get stomped on.

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